


Six Times Ben and Leslie Didn't Make Out, and One Time They Did

by jell_0_shot



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 18:28:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5753719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jell_0_shot/pseuds/jell_0_shot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snapshots of Ben and Leslie's life growing up, unrequited love, wanting to make out but the timing never being right, angst and what not. Until finally they do make out, and it's freaking awesome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Times Ben and Leslie Didn't Make Out, and One Time They Did

One.

Rebecca Barrow was turning twelve and she wanted her birthday party to be the best of the year. She’d invited everyone from their grade and Leslie had heard a rumour that she’d convinced her parents to let them have free reign of the basement. Leslie was attending out of obligation; Rebecca’s parents were friendly with her mother, and Ben had begged her to keep him company.

They were standing outside Rebecca’s house, presents and plates of food clutched under their arms. Leslie nudged her side into Ben’s and motioned her head towards the doorbell. He shuffled over, careful not to drop the container of sausage rolls, and pressed the button with his chin.

“Hi, Ben! You came!” Rebecca pulled him inside by the waist without a glance Leslie’s way, and started flirting far beyond her age. Subtlety had never been Rebecca’s strong suit, but Leslie had to give her props for being so forward. She wished she had the confidence to talk to boys like that. 

She picked up Rebecca’s birthday card that Ben had dropped and found her way to the basement. The room was head-to-toe in decorations; there were streamers falling from every high surface, a disco-ball threw patterns on the walls and the floor was a blanket of balloons. She spotted some girls she knew sitting by the food table and made a bee-line for them, thankful for their choice of location. They smiled at her and she settled in for the night, hoping that she could leave as soon as it was politely possible.

An hour had passed when she got dragged into a game of ‘7 Minutes in Heaven’. The group sat in a large circle, Rebecca standing above them all with a bottle in hand.

“Listen up! Here are the rules: whoever the bottle lands on gets blindfolded and sent to the cupboard over there.” She pointed towards a door tucked away in the corner. “Then we spin the bottle again, and whoever it lands on that time joins them for seven minutes. You only get seven minutes though, so use them wisely.”

Rebecca had an insinuating sparkle in her eye.

Watching the bottle spin made Leslie dizzy, and it stopped on Ben. Rebecca tied a scarf around his eyes and guided him to the cupboard. It was written all over her face that she wanted to be the next one chosen.

But she wasn’t. Leslie was.

Rebecca was shooting bullets with her eyes, and she was aiming straight for Leslie. She shrugged and made her way towards the closest. She could hear everyone whispering on the other side, speculating about what was going to happen between them.

“Ugh.” Leslie slumped to the floor and started counting down the seconds. 

“Leslie?” Ben pulled the blindfold below his eyes and a grin spread across his face, “Oh, thank God.”

“You wanted it to be me?”

Ben fell down beside her and threw the blindfold at the door, “Yeah, because you’re the only girl here who wouldn’t try and kiss me.”

Leslie scrunched her eyebrows in confusion. He was right; she definitely wouldn’t kiss him, but she thought he would have wanted someone to.

“I want my first kiss to really mean something, you know? It sounds dumb but I really don’t want it to be like this.”

Leslie nodded, and they played Paper, Scissors, Rock in the dark until their time was up.

~ ~ ~

Two.

It was the second time Leslie had ever been drunk and she loved the way her fingertips tingled. She loved the way her arms were twice as long when she threw them into the air, and how the turn of her head was a full-body spin. Everything was bigger and she felt more alive when she was drunk.

Three tequila shots later and Leslie did not love anything about being drunk anymore, because Ryan was also drunk. And drunk Ryan was kissing drunk Mandy, not drunk Leslie.

When Ben found her, she was a tangle of hair-sprayed hair and tears and sad limbs. He crouched down and his hand slid over her back, rubbing in circles.

“Les? Are you okay?” He’d never seen her cry before.

She glanced up at him, only just bothering to see whose hand was on her flesh, “Sure.”

Ben frowned, “I think you should probably get home now. Come on, I’ll walk you.”

“Sure.” She repeated. Perhaps it was the only word she remembered.

Once they were outside, walking and being hit by the cold air, Leslie found words.

“God, I’m so stupid. Since when do I give a shit about boys, Ben? Seriously? You know, I gave up watching an amazing documentary on Nancy Reagan to come to this ridiculous party - and for what? So I could see what it’s like to have Ryan Thomas’ tongue down my throat.” She scoffed, “And I still don’t even know what that feels like, because perfect little Mandy -” Something caught in her throat, and Ben was worried she was about to start crying again.

“Oh, God!” It was an angry groan instead. They walked on in silence for a few minutes; Leslie drowning in embarrassment and self-disgust, Ben scrambling to think of something to say to help even though it hurt. They came to a stop outside Leslie’s house and she turned to him, swaying slightly.

“How do you do it?” Leslie was staring at Ben intently.

“Do what?”

“Kiss the girls you like. I see you all the time with different girls, what’s the secret?” 

Leslie’s body was so close to his that he could feel the alcoholic heat in her veins, he could feel her breaths grazing his chin. For a second he forgot about answering her.

“Um, the trick is…well, you just have to kiss people you don’t, you know, like-like. That way there’s no nerves, you can do it without worrying since it doesn’t matter what they think.” 

“I see.” Leslie rocked backwards on her heels, causing space between them. He could see her tossing his theory over in her mind, chewing the corner of her mouth.

“Can I kiss you?” She asked.

Ben’s eyes flickered on Leslie for a moment, but he threw them towards the ground when water started to collect in their corners. He turned away, saying a quick ‘goodbye’ over his shoulder.

It was his theory that meant he couldn’t kiss her; it was his theory that meant she could.

~ ~ ~

Three.

Ben was completely, stupidly in love with his girlfriend.

The first time he’d told Leslie he loved Cindy, she’d laughed over her history textbook and thrown a Red Vine at him.

“You’ve only been dating for two and a half weeks, Ben.”

“I know but she makes me feel so alive, Les. I swear, I’ve never felt this way before.” He threw the Red Vine back at her.

“Okay, okay, but don’t come crying to me when she breaks your heart.”

Except, he did.

And Leslie was left trying to fix everything. She took him to a secluded lake so he could scream and scream and only the air would hear him. She kept him awake with coffee and let him call Cindy every name under the sun. She told him he deserved so much better, she told him he did nothing wrong, she told him she’d told him so.

And she also promised to go to Senior Prom with him so he wouldn’t be alone. She’d wanted to go solo but how could she say no to someone who just got dumped a week out from prom?

She was on the prom committee, which meant Ben ended up alone for most of the night anyway. But after hours of only seeing her for five minute snippets, he pulled her away from the broken smoke machine and led her to the dance floor.

“Sorry that I haven’t been able to spend much time with you tonight.” She said.

The music changed from upbeat to slow, and couples started to wrap their arms around each other. Leslie followed Ben’s eyes and saw that they were settled upon Cindy. She was with some guy from the football team, swaying and kissing every chance they got.

Leslie grabbed Ben’s hands and threw them around her waist, hers curling around his neck. He turned back to Leslie, eyes softening and grateful.

“Screw her.” She smiled at him and he nodded. 

The song began to end and Leslie noticed Ben staring at her lips. Oh my God, he’s going to kiss me. She couldn’t work out if she wanted him to, or if she wanted to pull away. As the last few notes rang out, he saw the panic in her eyes and let his arms fall to his side. Hers did too.

Leslie wiped her palms on her dress and breathed in.

“I’m going to go and fix that smoke machine. I’ll come and find you when it’s done, okay?”

“Sure.” 

She managed to fix it but she didn’t come back.

~ ~ ~

Four.

College was making Leslie reckless.

There was something about living away from home and having to face the world head-on that was empowering to her, and she was making the most of it.

It was empowering for Ben too; after a semester of politics with Leslie, the timing finally felt right to make a move. She’d been so free and weightless since they got here, and Ben was sure he could see a shift in the way she looked at him.

April, Leslie’s roommate, let Ben in. 

“I just wanted to go over one of my assignments with her.” He pointed to the bundle of pages clutched in his hands. They were blank.

“She’s not here.” 

Ben wondered how April managed to maintain the pretense of being emotionless all the time. Although, he did see a hint of a smile on her face last week when Leslie was teasing him about liking calzones. 

“It’s okay, I’ll just wait here.”

“Whatever.”

April left, and Ben found a spot on Leslie’s bed that wasn’t covered in ring-binders. He picked up one of her textbooks and flipped through the pages as he waited. 

Finally, the door flung open, and two connected bodies fell into her room. Leslie’s hands were in his curly hair, one of his was on the small of her back, the other stretched out in front of them to find their way. 

Ben didn’t know what to do, but he couldn’t just sit on Leslie’s bed until they realised he was watching. He jumped up and cleared his throat loudly. Very loudly. 

“Ben, what are you doing here?” Leslie’s voice was high, almost shrill. Her cheeks were flushed and the strap of her spaghetti top had fallen down her arm, lying loosing. She pulled it up when she noticed his stare.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Ben tried to leave.

The curly-haired guy held his hand up, stopping him, “It’s okay dude, I’ll go.” 

He turned to Leslie, gave her a quick, odd smile and left. She followed him out into the hall, asking him to stay. Ben heard her curse under her breath and he wanted to be anywhere in the world but where he was.

She marched back in, slamming the door behind her. “What the fuck are you doing here, Wyatt?”

Ben’s brows were scrunched, “I was just…you know? I was going to, um. I…” He was floundering, grasping for something he couldn’t get a hold of.

“Ben, spit it out.”

“I’m sorry, you’re busy. I’m just gonna go, okay?” He headed for the door, her blonde curls getting in the way before he could reach the handle.

Her eyes widened into full moons, “Thanks to you, I’m no longer busy. You might as well just tell me what you came for.”

She was stubborn, and that hint of determination that so often rested in her eyes was present. She wasn’t going to let him go until he explained himself.

“I came here to kiss you.”

Leslie dropped her head to the ground, scorched by his gaze and too full of emotions to make sense of his confession right now. She let the word sorry leave her lips before stepping backwards, out of his way. 

He left the same way the curly-haired guy had.

~ ~ ~

Five.

The dorm party was alive with second-year’s who were washing away the thought of final exams and the studying that lay ahead of them over the next few weeks. Everyone wanted to drink and breathe and be. 

Leslie hadn’t left Ben’s side, dragging him around to meet her new friends and ensuring that his cup was never empty. She was only a little bit drunk; enough to make her throw her head back and laugh at jokes, but not enough to make everything a cloud.

The room was full of people. Leslie started to feel dizzy and held onto Ben, telling him she needed air. He pushed through the crowd until they were out in the corridor, heading for outside.

Leslie let the fresh air hit her face and smiled. Ben watched her; he watched the way her hair had no choice in the breeze, the way her smile stretched and lit up her entire face, the way she looked back at him when she realised he was staring.

If it were possible, her smile grew and she found her way towards him. She came closer, until their thighs were touching and he could taste the vodka on her breath as she whispered his name. She wrapped her arms around his middle, closing the gap between their mouths.

His shoulders stiffened, his legs jerked back.

“What? What’s wrong?” Leslie pulled away.

Ben’s eyes dropped to the ground, his hands curling into fists. You’ve spent our entire friendship rejecting me, and I’m scared I’m going to get hurt. Again.

“It’s nothing, it’s just…” Ben looked at her again, “We’ve been friends for so long, you know? I wouldn’t want to ruin that.”

“We’re not fucking twelve anymore, Ben.”

“I know, Les.” 

Leslie could feel a wall of water building behind her eyes, but she refused to cry over Benji fucking Wyatt. She stood up and willed her voice not to wobble.

“My mistake; I didn’t realise I still have to be the one who doesn’t want to kiss you during seven minutes in heaven.”

And then she left, because that’s what they were both good at; leaving the other in pieces. 

~ ~ ~

Six.

No one had ever looked more ridiculous in a graduation cap than Ben did, and probably never would. Leslie weaved her way through the crowd to him, tapping his shoulder.

“You look like an idiot.”

Ben turned around, grinning because he knew her voice.

“Thanks, Knope. You look like one too.” That was a lie. “Congratulations.”

“You too.” She had a light in her eyes.

They smiled at each other, and a moment passed by in silence that felt unusually awkward. He squinted at her, unsure of what to say.

“Well, I’ve got to get back to my mom. Thanks for everything, Ben.” 

She threw her arms around him in a bear hug, and turned to leave. But something about this moment felt bittersweet and he needed to get rid of the bitter part. His hand caught her wrist.

She turned back around in his hold, “You okay?”

Kiss her, you fucking fool.

His lips parted and he could see the movements he needed to take to kiss her; one step forward, right hand on her hip, left hand on her cheek. She was looking up at him expectedly.

“Keep in touch, okay?”

His hand released her arm and she smiled.

“I promise.”

~ ~ ~

And One Time They Did.

He noticed her the moment she walked into the bar. 

She was wearing a red dress that hugged her hips and was driving Ben crazy. He had no idea if she’d moved back to Pawnee after college, or if she was taking on the White House already. Either way, she was here now and he couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked.

“You, Leslie Knope, are terrible at keeping promises.”

She swiveled in her chair, a scorn already painted on her face. But the second she realised it was Ben Wyatt, not a creep trying to hit on her, she beamed. 

He looked good. He’d grown out of his childish looks; stubble now peppering his jawline, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The barman placed her drink in front of her and she took a sip.

“And what exactly did I promise you, Benji?” Her eyes sparkled at the use of his childhood nickname, as if the memories all came back with that one word.

Ben sat down on the stool next to her and ordered himself a beer. He smiled at her, “You promised me you’d keep in touch. It’s been thirteen years, Les.” He set a look of faux disappointment on his face to hide the actual disappointment he’d felt for all that time.

“I know, I’m so sorry, Ben.” She wrapped herself around him, awkwardly leaning over from her bar stool and held tight. He smelt like toothpaste and pine and old books. 

“It’s okay, we all got busy with life.” He spoke into her hair until she returned back to her seat and her drink, “Speaking of, how has your life been? I want a detailed play-by-play.” 

Her mouth curved up and she launched into her story. She told him about working at City Hall, he told her about how unhappy he was as an accountant; she told him about her divorce, he told her about his long string of unsuccessful relationships; she told him she lived a few blocks away, he told her he was thinking of moving back since his mother was sick.

“So how come you’re here alone tonight?” Ben asked, his hand drawing circles on his beer bottle. They’d been sitting together for hours, both still on their first drink. Seeing her was enough to get him drunk tonight.

Leslie glanced around the bar, “I was actually supposed to be going on a blind date, but I guess he didn’t show. Or he saw me with you and decided to leave.” She waved her hand to show it didn’t matter.

“Well, either way I’m glad he’s not here.” 

Their eyes caught on each others for a moment, only moving when Leslie’s ringtone went off. She checked the caller I.D.

“I’m sorry, it’s Ann. I have to take this.”

Leslie found a quiet corner and Ben wondered who Ann was. It was an odd sensation; having to learn about the person you used to know most in the world. 

“I’m so sorry, Ben. Ann - my best friend - just dumped her boyfriend and she wants me to come over. I said I would, I hope that’s okay.” She started to collect her things. 

“Of course, you need any help with anything?”

“No, it’s okay, I should be fine. It was so nice to see you tonight, it - well, you- you feel like home.” 

Leslie’s eyes shifted in embarrassment but Ben knew exactly what she meant.

“You feel like home too.”

She smiled, lingering for a moment more. And then he watched her walk out of the door, he watched her walk away. Ben turned back to the bar and ordered another beer. He drank half of it in one gulp and slammed the bottle into the bench top. 

“You fucking idiot.” The words were under his breath, but angry. He looked towards the door and suddenly it all became very clear; not this time.

Not this time.

His legs were moving, running, and the rest of him followed. The air outside bit him, much harsher than the warmth of drinking bodies inside the bar. 

“Leslie!?”

He ran around the carpark until he spotted blonde curls in a Honda, just about to reverse. He ran up beside the car and knocked on the window. She wound it down, confused.

“Is everything okay?” 

“Yeah, it’s great. It’s perfect. Can you hop out of the car for a second? There’s something I need to say to you, I’ve needed to say it for a very long time.”

She turned her car off and stepped out, leaning against the door, waiting.

“I know we haven’t seen each other for over a decade, but everything has just come flooding back tonight. All of the memories, all of the feelings, and it reminded me of how much of an idiot I am - have always been.”

“What are you talking about-”

Ben grabbed her hand and squeezed, “I know this is going to sound crazy, but Leslie Knope, I have a huge fucking crush on you.” Even in the night’s darkness, he could see the sparkle in her eyes as he said the words out loud, “I let you go far too many times when we were growing up. Not this time.”

“Ben, I…” 

But she didn’t get to finish her sentence. His lips crashed onto hers and the whole world stopped spinning. Everything around them was falling, falling, but they were standing on a little piece of rock, solid. It was all teeth and tongue and his hands were sliding around her torso, wanting more.

Her hand reached behind his neck and pulled him closer, pulled him into her and he bit her lip. A little whimper left her; a mixture of need and sadness. She needed to get to Ann, but she also needed Ben. She pulled back, her hands resting on his rising, falling, rising, falling chest.

“I guess that’s what happens after decades of pent up sexual tension.” She laughed and it was raspy, “but I really do need to get to Ann…”

He nodded. She opened her car, lent half her body in and searched her bag. She came back with a Sharpie and wrote her number on his wrist.

“Call me, okay?” 

He couldn’t wipe the goofy grin off his face and her digits were burning into his skin, “Definitely.”

“And don’t wait thirteen years before you call.” She looped her pinky finger through his and bobbed their hands up and down, “We just pinky promised, so this time we have to stick to it.”

She drove away and his lips and wrist and little finger were flames. He wasn’t going to let this promise get broken.

Not this time.


End file.
